


And My Heart Told My Head

by iicyblue (sailormade)



Category: H2O: Just Add Water
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, i'm not great at tagging okay take these all with a grain of salt, tags will be updated eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailormade/pseuds/iicyblue
Summary: Cleo, Emma, Rikki, and Bella have almost conquered their first year of University, and life seems to be better than ever—except that Cleo can't shake the feeling that something bad is coming with the next full moon, and her powers are acting strangely and getting weaker by the day, and to top it all off: Ronnie is very sick. At least things can't get any worse... Right? /Season 4, set two years after "Graduation."*ships not currently tagged because they'll ruin all the surprises!-Chapter One:On days like the one she was having today, Cleo Sertori swore that the universe was working against her.





	And My Heart Told My Head

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, lil fishies. pretty, pretty please let me know what you thought. ❤ any predictions for next chapter? anything you'd like to see in later chapters?

> _Was it love or fear of the cold_   
>  _that led us through the night?_

**i.** **cleo.**

On days like the one she was having today, Cleo Sertori swore that the universe was working against her.

The tiled floor of the public toilets—the ones located closest to the main entrance of the marine park, next to the gift shop—were sticky and cold, littered with tiny shreds of (hopefully unused) tissue paper, and far too small to comfortably fit an agitated mermaid and her very large tail. And, as if being stuck on a filthy floor after suddenly transforming into a mermaid in the middle of her busy work shift wasn't bad enough, there were also flies: big, ugly, buzzing flies that wouldn't stop landing in her damp hair and on the bare skin of her shoulder. The smell wasn't great either.

Cleo winced as she propped herself up on one elbow; After her legs had turned to seawater and then re-solidified as her long, golden tail, she'd fallen to the ground with a hefty thud. Her elbows and back took the brunt of the fall. If she were a betting woman, which she could occasionally be, she would put a fifty on being bruised by morning.

"Great." Cleo said to herself. She swatted at a particularly pesky fly. "This is . . . just great."

It was a small miracle that the broad fin at the end of her tail ended up pressed against the door. Although her fin was bent up at an uncomfortable angle, Cleo was grateful. Her tail fin was the only thing preventing the toliets' unlocked door from being pushed open. And, subsequently, the only thing preventing her identity as a mermaid from being discovered by a guest of the marine park.

She looked around for something, anything at all, to dry herself with.

On the blue wall behind her, directly above her head, Cleo spotted a paper towel dispenser. She could have almost cried with relief—and, not for the first time that day, decided to take half a second to be thankful for little mercies. With a determined grunt, Cleo pushed herself up on one hand and used the other to make a grab for the paper towel she saw hanging out the dispenser. She missed, predictably, and caught nothing but air. Cleo huffed, frustrated. In her mind, the paper towel mocked her— _try again, little mermaid,_ it seemed to sneer, _you're almost there._ Her second try wasn't any better. Her fingertips brushed the bottom of the paper towel but ultimately fell short.

After another ten seconds or so of desperate reaching, Cleo lowered herself back onto the dirty floor with a stiff wrist. It was already beginning to ache with the strain of supporting her weight. She was getting ready to push herself back up and try again, sore wrist be damned, when a hard knock on the unlocked door punched the breath from her lungs. A blood-chilling sense of fear gripped her.

"Is anyone in there?" A masculine voice boomed. They sounded agitated, whoever they were. Angry, even. "I've been waiting for close to fifteen minutes."

"Maintenance!" Cleo shouted. It was the first believable excuse that she could think of. "I'm doing maintenance. There's a bad clog in here, and . . . um, a little flooding. I'll be out in just a few minutes!"

"Take you time," The stranger outside the door said. Their tone was still very much agitated, but it had softened some. They sounded less likely to kick the door down, at the very least, which put Cleo at ease . . . just a little. "I'll just use the gift shop toilet."

She exhaled a breath that she didn't realize she was holding.

"Alright," Cleo said to the empty room. She looked up at the paper towel dispenser again. "I can do this. I can do this."

The eighth time was the charm, it seemed. Cleo pushed herself up one more time, this time with twice as much force and three times as much moxie, and managed to grab the paper towel she had been reaching for. And, by some stroke of luck, a small handful of towels followed behind it. She ended up with no more than five sheets, but they were more than enough. Cleo blotted her scales dry as fast as she could. Her hands shook all the while. Fifty two seconds crawled by, feeling like an eternity and a half, but Cleo finally felt the familiar sensation of magic stirring low in her belly. The sensation felt strange; It always did. She could only describe the magic that turned her from girl to mermaid to girl again as just that: a strange sensation that began in the pit of her stomach and swept through her like a flood of cold, tiny bubbles.

The sweep of magic lasted for only a moment, and then Cleo was staring at her legs again.

She got to her feet and brushed off the front of her work shirt, hoping to save a little face. She wasn't thrilled with the reflection in the mirror: her dark hair was frizzier than she had ever seen it and coming out of it's ponytail in three different places, her face was a startling shade of red and slick with a sheen of sweat from the combination of humidity and exertion, there was an unidentifiable stain on the breast of her shirt, and one of her earrings had fallen out.

 _'Whatever.'_ Cleo thought. _'It's fine. I'm a dolphin trainer. Not a model. I'll just have an extra long bath tonight.'_

She ran out of the public toilets, eager to get back to her shift. She hoped that Laurie hadn't noticed the way she ran off when Ronnie splashed her. Cleo doubted he had, though. Her and Laurie had had their hands full with Ronnie ever since the female dolphin he bred died. A severe complication had arisen about halfway through her pregnancy, and even with three veterinarians working day and night to keep her and her unborn calf alive, Mycella's heart just couldn't take the stress and the strain. She passed away a little after midnight, and Ronnie had been inconsolable ever since.

He swam the length of his enclosure day in and day out, back and forth, clicking and whistling for Mycella. He refused to do anything other than swim in circles and cry, including eat. Cleo and Laurie both were at a loss for what to do. Ronnie had lost a dangerous amount of weight, and he was beginning to get aggressive, too. He would lash out and attack the other dolphins, and throw himself against the walls of his enclosure whenever someone walked by. Ronnie had now been moved to a different, temporary enclosure by himself. Laurie hoped that a little time away from where the water where Mycella's scent still lingered would help calm him down. But Cleo knew that Laurie's relocation idea was nothing more than a Hail Mary card. If Ronnie's morale didn't improve soon, he would have to be relocated to different marine park with better medical facilities.

Losing Mycella and her calf was heartbreaking enough, but losing Ronnie? That was unthinkable. He had always been Cleo's favorite. Even back when she was selling ice cream. He was her baby. She couldn't lose him, too.

But, still . . . Ronnie was obviously very sick, and if he didn't get the care he needed, he could die too. As her eyes dampened at the thought, familiar words from her mother, Bev, echoed through Cleo's mind: _'Listen, baby, I know that it's hard to understand right now, but sometimes when you love someone, really love someone, you have to let them go.'_

As she approached Ronnie's temporary enclosure once again, Cleo glanced down at her watch. The time read 2:12 P.M. Only three more hours to ago.

**. . . * . . .**

Cleo dove into the waves.

The second that her shift at the Marine Park ended, she'd grabbed her things out of her employee locker, shoved them in the backseat of her silver Toyota Corolla, and driven ten minutes down the road to a secluded little spot on the beach where she could run into the ocean and disappear for awhile. And run into the ocean and disappear, Cleo did.

She swam toward Mako Island. With every mile that she put between herself and the land, the lighter and freer she felt. Cleo didn't rush toward Mako; She enjoyed a slow, easy swim with a playful pod of dolphins, and she counted each and every clownfish that she saw along the way, and she kissed two of her fingers and pressed them to a turtle's nose. The warm waters of the sea, and all the wonderful, colorful life within, felt like a soothing hug; When Cleo arrived at the Moon Pool, she had a smile on her face.

Her head broke the surface. She wiped the seawater from her eyes, blinked, and saw Emma floating on her back, eyes closed.

"Enjoying that nap, Em?" Cleo teased.

Emma Gilbert jerked awake. She turned to look at Cleo and narrowed her pretty blue eyes in playful disdain. Cleo laughed.

"Just waiting for my Nurofen to kick in," Emma replied, turning onto her belly and swimming toward the little ledge where Cleo was resting her arms. "This paper I have due tomorrow is giving me a migraine."

Cleo groaned. "Don't remind me. I have a maths assignment due the day after tomorrow—and I've only got half of it done! I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I hate calculus. _I hate it._ I literally cannot wrap my brain around it. It's like trying to read Greek!"

"You could always ask Lewis to help you out," Emma suggested, tucking a wet piece of blonde hair behind her ear. "I don't know if you've noticed, but he literally lives right across the hall from us."

"I noticed," Cleo said, rolling her eyes; She sighed. "It's just . . . He's so busy with Michael, you know? And he's got school, and his paramedic stuff, and—"

"And," Emma said, interrupting Cleo. "You're making excuses. We've _all_ got school and work, but we make time for each other. I know that things have been weird between you and Lewis since Michael was born, but the sooner you stop being weird about it, the sooner things will go back to normal."

Cleo scoffed. "I'm not being weird!"

Emma lifted a perfectly shaped brow and said nothing.

"Okay, fine," Cleo said. "Maybe I've been a _little_ weird, but I'm doing my best to be okay with . . . everything that happened. I'm trying."

Emma smiled, soft and kind. Cleo couldn't help but smile, too.

"I'm know you're trying," Emma said—and then, suddenly, her eyes lit up; Cleo knew Emma well enough to know what that look meant: She had an idea. "Hey! I've got an idea. Why don't we invite everyone over for dinner? It'll be our own little _WE SURVIVED OUR FIRST YEAR OF UNIVERSITY_ celebration. _And_ we'll rope Ash into cooking since he's the only one of us who knows how to make something other than two minutes noodles."

Cleo didn't have the energy to force a laugh at Emma's attempt at humor, true as it might be. Though she felt better than she did at the Marine Park, her heart was still heavy, grieving for Ronnie and, _now that she'd been reminded,_ what her and Lewis could've been. And what they could've had.

"Well, we still have another three weeks left," Cleo pointed out. "And a full moon coming up. We can celebrate once we survive all that."

"The last full moon went fine, Cleo. And the one before that. You're being paranoid."

"No, I know. Just—something feels off lately, Em. I don't know. I just have a bad feeling. Like, _when-Charlotte-was-around_ kind of bad feeling."

"How about this?" Emma asked matter-of-factly. "I'll race you to the café and buy you a cheer up smoothie, then you can tell me all about your bad feeling and I'll debunk it for you."

"Alright," Cleo said with a good-natured groan. "You're on. And if, and only if, you can make me feel a little less like the world is ending, we'll have an Ash Dove sponsored dinner party. But there has to be wine. Lots and lots of wine. Red."

Emma laughed, splashed Cleo in the face, and took off. But, before Cleo could submerge and chase Emma back to the café, she heard rocks skittering down the tunnel to the land entrance. Someone was coming. Her heart fluttered excitedly. It had to be Lewis. Zane still wasn't back from Sydney, and Ash had class for another forty five minutes, and Will was helping Sophie move into her new apartment . . .

"Cleo?" Bella Hartley asked.

Oh. Right. Bella wasn't a mermaid anymore. She had to use the land entrance now too, like the boys. Cleo's heart sank, both in disappointment that it wasn't Lewis and in sympathy for Bella. Bella had been human for almost six months, but the little things still caught Cleo off guard: Bella using the land entrance to the Moon Pool, Bella washing her hands before baking, Bella offering to give Michael a bath when Lewis was gone . . . It all seemed so wrong.

The tight, glassy-eyed, anxiety-ridden expression on Bella's face seemed wrong, too.

"Bella, hey," Cleo said. "What's going on?"

Her stomach clenched, bracing for the worst. Cleo felt like she was always bracing for the worst, these days.

"I called you six times," Bella said quickly. She sounded out of breath. "I couldn't get ahold of you—Cara called me about half an hour ago. Lewis is in the hospital. It's—It's bad. He's not gonna' die, but it's bad. He got between one his patients and her drunk husband. I guess he took a hell of a beating."

Cleo blinked, the information not quite registering. "What?"

"We need to go to the hospital," Bella said. "Right now. Rikki is already there with Michael. She needs us, too."

Tears flooded Cleo's eyes, stinging them like seawater used to. _Of course_ Lewis would do something as selflessly, stupidly, recklessly brave as use himself as a meatshield. There were very, very few lines that he wouldn't cross to keep the innocent safe. Cleo fought the urge to vomit.

The universe was working against her, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> cara is lewis' mama lol you'll meet her next chapter ❤  
> spoiler alert she's a tiny badass angel of light and warmth and we as a human race do not deserve her


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